The Last Towns to Use Operators to Connect Calls - AT&T Archives
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- Опубликовано: 16 янв 2013
- Bonus Edition introduction by George Kupczak of the AT&T Archives and History Center
A film about the last few offices in the United States that, in the 1970s, had yet to convert to the dial system:
Catalina Island, California
Catalina Island has been an important little corner of the AT&T world. In fact, the link between Catalina and Los Angeles was the very first in the Bell System to be wireless. The island was linked to the mainland via a radiotelephony system all the way back in 1920. For having such a significant telephone technology first, it's ironic that this film chronicles the city's telephone technology "last".
Virginia City, Nevada
In the film, an operator - in fact, the only operator - who had been working in Virginia City since 1949 is interviewed about the prospective cutover (a cutover is a switch from one type of telephony system to another). She talks about the fact that they will have automation, and more than one operator. Virginia City hasn't grown much since then, however. The city proper still has a population of only around 850 people (2010 census).
St. Ignace, Michigan
As this city still used 1940s switchboards, the incipient electronic switching system was to completely change telephone operation in this sleepy summer tourist town. But towns with no dial service also had customers who couldn't get then-modern features like call waiting on their phones.
Footage courtesy of AT&T Archives and History Center, Warren, NJ 
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My Dad is from rural Mississippi and was a very late operator switchboard town. My mother tells the story that they moved to Boston in the late 60's and called back to Rosedale Miss. My mother got the local operator and said she wanted Rosedale number 105. The Boston operator replied, mam, phone numbers have more digits. My mother was like, not is Rosedale. So the Boston operator rang up Rosedale and said she wanted number 105. The Rosedale operator said Oh, you want Margaret, she isn't home. My mother heard this and said something like do you know when she will be back. The Rosedale operator heard her and said "Oh, Barbara, she is over at Miss Sues house playing bridge, do you want me to ring her there?". My mother thought the Boston operator nearly fell out of her chair that there were still towns with 3 digit phone numbers and an operator who knew where everyone was.
I believe ya. We had the same system where I live!! It is a private, family run phone company to this day. It was early 1980's when we switched to regular numbers & direct dial!! I can remember trying to reach my folks & going through what you described!! Good old days!LOL.
There is a rosedale California and a rosedale Maryland as well.
“Hello? Sarah? Sheriff Taylor. Will you get me my Aunt Bea at my house?”
@aew1513 That's a great story! Thanks a lot!
My mother's hometown in the South was like that. She even once (in the late 60s) from college to prove a point to some friends sent a postcard just to her first name in her hometown city/state. Of course her mother got it!
Curiosity led me to look up Marcella, the former Virginia City operator. Marcella died in 2008 at the age of 93. She was about 60 when the video was made.
Her obit states:
"A resident of Carson City for 10 years, previously resided in Virginia City where she worked for Nevada Bell (1949-1975) and was the last head operator when it changed from a magneto board to dial in 1975. She was a lifetime member of the telephone pioneers."
The last bit probably should be capitalized, Telephone Pioneers, a worldwide volunteer and charitable organization comprising current and former telecom employees.
Great Info! Thanks a lot!
There was a tiny private exchange operating in north central Idaho in the mid 80s that still used that system. I was in the area working a forest fire and needed to call headquarters in Boise. I went to use the pay phone in the bar ( the only pay phone in town). I was told to just pick up the receiver and wait for the operator. No one picked up for several minutes and the bar owner said” just keep trying, she might be out back hanging laundry out to dry”.
Our Wilma had the switchboard in her kitchen. She might be canning tomatoes or baby sitting grandkids!! I'm still on a family owned, private phone company here in my rural ne k of the woods. We finally went to direct dial sometime in the early 1980's.
I grew up on a farm in a rural area. When you picked up the phone, you got the operator. She connected your call. Just like the Andy Griffith show, lol. As teenagers, we swore she was listening to our conversations. We also had party lines. Sometimes that was a real pain. We thought we were hot stuff when we got dial phones. I think it was 1967.
Most operators DID listen to calls. Often times they would just touch the tip over their cords to the jack and listen to see if the line was engaged. Often times, they'd listen for a lot longer than they should have.
Good story. I remember that Grandma had a "party line" back then.
I bet that cut down phone scammers !
Agreed, bet if we had that systen today all these robocalls or telemarketers wouldn't exist. But again that would mean it's not possible to have a smartphone which I do like I think it's a blessing and a curse at the same time
I remember in the 1970's, my grandfather's phone, out in the country, was a party line, and anyone could listen in on your conversation. Yes, it cut down on scammers, but not privacy.
Calls were too expensive back then and you had to lease your phone from AT&T.
@@billdougan4022 Yes my mom (80) said they had to share lines with your neighbors and typically would hear others conversations back then. Talk about nosy neighbors in those days lol.
@@billdougan4022 We moved to a new house in '72 which wasn't wired yet. My sister, brother and I watched as they laid underground cable that Summer. We finally got phone service, but were on a party line for about 6 months.
In the 1950s we used to call my mother’s family in Australia. For instance, to call my uncle Jack, my father would call US overseas operator. He would tell them who we were calling, where they lived, and their number. The operator would give my father a time (8pm) the next night - it took 24 hours to get a circuit to Australia! At that time he would call overseas O and with a period of shouting (HELLO JACK) end up talking to my uncle. It was like talking to someone at the end of a long metal tube.
I remember when every long distance call went thru the operator. My phone number started with a word! And then only 5 numbers.
@@marilynmitchell2712 my exchange was Ulysses. When I placed my first phone call, I lifted the receiver and a nice ladies voice said “Number, please.” I was a bit nervous. It was the first time I made a call. It was from my friend’s house to mine, and I couldn’t remember my own number. I hung up! ;) I was about six.
As an ex-contractor for at&t and son of a 30 yr at&t labs man, i am so grateful to see these videos which so enthralled me are open to all.
So am I. All of this is very important to see where we came from and how technology progressed.
My grandmother worked on the last switchboard in Montana in the 1960s. When they phased it out, she became a dispatcher.
after watching a few switchboard video's it amazes me to how easy they make it look but im sure in reality it took years to master the switchboard. that was a special breed all on it's own
There was still a system like this serving Camp Williams, north of Glendora, CA in '77 or '78. I was near there one night when I stopped for a minute, and couldn't restart my station wagon. Corroded battery cable, no electricity. Had the tools with me to fix it, but they were in the back of the wagon, and I had to open the tailgate. Had to lower the window. The window was electric! DOH!
Got a ride back to a phone booth at Camp Williams. No dial on phone, phone number was 27. Had to have the operator call a friend of mine to bring tools to fix the car. Owed him a few beers for that one!
Interesting.
Holy Shit!!!!!!!! It’s the “Honey Badger” Dude!!!!!!!!!!
Lmao. I was telling my wife. "I've heard this voice somewhere."
Yep.
We had party line until the late 1970's the eaves droppers were a real pain.
I remember my uncle had a party line - if a call was for him, the phone rang two longs and a short!
We were on a party line until 1969. When my dad got sent to Viet nam, we got a private line so he could call us.
That would put a real damper on phone s*x.
We had party lines south of town until the early 80's where I grew up.
We had party lines in my hometown until the late 80s!
Probably worked better than AT&T cell phones today.
"AT&T is a carrier of phone service in much the same way a mosquito is a carrier of Malaria."
Lewis Black
Meaning their phone service worked better in Africa than the US?
I would say it certainly worked better. In fact, it worked perfectly. It could be expensive, though, to call out of town.
Lewis Black is referring to AT&T cellular service and how it’s widely considered to be mediocre in its services. Malaria and mosquitos have negative connotation. AT&T and cellular service also have a poor connotation. Hope this helps the confusion.
I get the joke, but it's a bad analogy. Mosquitoes are so good as carriers of Malaria that they are synonymous with the disease.
The joke is that they are bad carriers, but the analogy compares them to a good carrier.
Love the old stuff. I have a collection of dial phones, 2 crank phones and a complete 2-way telegraph system at my house. Just need a teletype machine and a carrier pigeon to round it all out, lol!
This guy sounds like he enjoys what he’s doing and this isn’t an afterthough 👍
I thought he sounded gay
@@DJKinney Ever heard of a lisp?
@@evilpimp2475 You sound nice.
Evilpimp 😂😂 totally man...straight up campy gay
Lewis Johnson he is so hype he makes me want to get up and smoke a blunt
This piece brings back college memories, where (at Walla Walla College, now Univ), I revelled in my occ. shifts operating a small private college switchboard in the late 60’s, early 70’s…no more than 4 trunk lines for perhaps 40-50 extensions. Fun, but busy. I may have broken a stereotype on that system…one of the first guys to ‘operate’ there.
My grandmother was a switchboard operator in St. Ignace. When i was younger the old switchboard was still in place. The building was used as a library at that time. My grandmother showed me what to plug in where to connect a call from her house to mine. There is only one small section of the old switchboard left. It sits in the Chamber of Commerce building.
My dad and grandpa worked for AT&T. I have a great pride for the history.
When I was a kid, I used to pick up the phone and carry on make believe conversations over the dial tone. My grandmother used to tell me I shouldn't do that- "the operator will think you are taking to her."
Wonderful bits of the telephones history. I was a switchboard operator at num.1 Bush st. SF. I WORKED NITES DURING THE VIETNAM WAR. CONECTING SOLDERS TO FAMILY MEMBERS HERE IN THE STATES.
Little York, Indiana had their own phone company and switchboard operator clear into the late 1980's and anything outside of town was long distance.
Rebel9668 where was the operator in Little York?
"long distance please"
See my comments this site. We still have our family owned, private phone company.
@@JimRockford853 Yes, upstairs in a room above the little grocery store there. The building is still there now, but it's empty as far as I know.
Port Townsend, WA was also one of the last offices to switch to the dial system. I want to say it was 1971 or 72.
Yep. I still live where we have a PRIVATE PHONE COMPANY owned by a local family. This is a very rural, Upper Midwest state. Our phone book is very slim!! Up until the 1980's we had 4 digit numbers, no direct dial and Wilma had the switchboard in her kitchen. When the " kids" took over, they did go to direct dial & regular 7 digit numbers. I finally got rid of our 1940 desk phone in 2017!!
I believe the phone company in Pekin, Indiana is privately owned as it's a co-operative (members owned) system. Growing up it was called the Washington County Rural Telephone Co-Op, but about 15 or so years ago they invested in fiber optic buried lines for their members and changed their name to Telemedia Solutions. I grew up using their system and still lived in their area when they went to fiber optic. I bought a house about 12 years ago about 6 miles west of where I used to live and ended up on Frontier which is a large company and thought we'd have better internet but boy was I wrong, LOL! Frontier was still using dial up internet! They did eventually install some sort of faster system for internet but it runs over the same copper cable line as their service always has and the lines and poles date back to the 1940's, LOL! Fortunately about 2 years ago our rural electric co-op started running fiber optic on their electric poles and offering it and we jumped on it as soon as it got here. Now we get 100 mbps for $30 a month compared to the $50 a month we were paying for the landline phone and the 6 mbps speed Frontier offered. If we wanted to we could bump it up to 1gbps fpr like $100 a month but the 100 mbps does everything we need it to do and does it quickly so we haven't bothered.
@@Rebel9668 ..Yep, I hear you about the poles & lines! Those " kids" who took over replaced ours too. We still have a few insulators ( brown & blue glass plus the cross pieces laying around here on my place). They offer internet too but now our local electrical coop is putting through 5G & at a lower rate, so I will see. Sometimes, I tell our friends from down state, just call us Hooterville. Actually, the phone company operates out of a small pole barn on one of their farms. So, it isn't unusual to pull in & hear the cows or have a bunch of chickens running across the gravel..I kid you not. Also, 911 service didn't reach us until early 1990's. This whole side of my state receives electrical service through Co-Op's. These kind of things, most people can't believe still exist. It has it's advantages in some ways. I can go over to phone office & pay my property taxes because one of the ladies is also township treasurer. Plus, if we have trouble, it is easy to get hold of them & they generally are pretty prompt. Such is life in rural America!!
Wow.
Fascinating! Thank You! I have always had so much respect for AT&T/Bell. I have always wanted to work for them, but now I'm too old.
The operator in Virginia City look and sound exactly like what you would expect about an operator
That's my Grandpa, at about 6 minutes in. I can remember the old hand-crank phone on his wall in his house. I remember that, if we called up to Virginia City and we would get Marcella on the phone and ask for his number (I believe it was 5-5); But maybe Marcella just "heard" that he was going to the post office or heading to the Courthouse, where he worked, she would re-direct us to another location or tell us that we should call back in a half hour. It was like everyone in V.C. had a personal answering service. They knew where everybody was and what they were doing. LOL!
Notice when my grandpa uses the phone and just cranks and asks Marcella to "...get me the Sheriff, please". That was exactly how it was! Marcella would KNOW where the sheriff was. If he was in his office, she would ring him there; and if he wasn't in his office, she would probably know exactly where he was.
@@lvmyfam11
Your Grandpa sounds like he is a wonderful person. I hope you are still enjoying his company.
Many exchanges were still using stepper switches well into the 1990's. I tore out several in the 1991-94 years, then another batch in 1997-99 years. The last steppers I removed were in Arkansas. I'm sure there still a few others around the country afterwards, but they had to been rare. Most offices having cut over to Nortel, Stromberg Carlson, GTE, or other digital switches.
Into the late 90s, there were definitely a number of them still operating in the US. I was a phone phreak back then, and we would kinda keep track of them. 😂
I knew someone in rural Michigan that was on one, and Miami, TX was still using one. There were a number of them in Canada, too. When I went away to college in 1998, I stopped paying attention.
Looking back on it, it's striking how much the world has changed. In-band signalling was still in use, especially internationally. I was able to blue box using an 800 number to Ketchikan, AK, as well as numerous toll-free home country direct numbers, e.g. Greece, Chile, Macau, Belize ... this was the very end of the bluebox era. Between 1996 and 1998, many (perhaps all) of these countries cut over to C7. I have not been able to find anything analog anywhere in the world lately.
I live in rural BC, Canada. We still had steppers well into the early 2000's. Touch-Tone was introduced "in town" in the mid-90's but didn't reach us out in the boonies until a few years later. I can still remember as a kid picking up the phone and waiting for the dial tone to go away so I could listen to the clatter of the mechanical switches over the line. Often times you could hear other conversations, too! As a kid in the 1980's, we only had to dial 5 numbers if it was a local call. That ended when the touch-tone era began.
Are there any live, human operators left?
@@That_AMC_Guy There are still live operators, but not like there used to be. ILECs may only employ enough to have a couple cover a 24/7/365 for that ILEC's entire footprint. It not like they are connecting calls, whether local or long distance, like yesteryear. Most serve more as a live phone book, capable of making call connections. Some of your smaller ILEC's and Mom & Pop phone companies hire a 3rd party company to do operator work, or have an agreement with a long distance carrier to perform the duties.
I love old shows like this. A lot different than the switchboards of today which I’ve used.
In 1978, I was an operator at the last switchboard in the state of Texas, at Dallas. My unit served a handful of small northeast Texas towns that still did not have direct dial. I was only on the unit for a few months, until they told us that everything was to be modernized and the switchboard would finally have to be deactivated. It was sort of fun working at the switchboard, and when they transferred me to become a directory service operator, it wasn't nearly as fun.
Never heard of this island before but I looked into it and contrary to my expectation of an island close to Greater Los Angeles, there's lots of nature left on Santa Catalina. If I were from California, I'd check the place out.
This is the last manual switchboard in the old Bell System (AT&T) but not the last manual one to operate in the USA. Recall reading an article recently about a small town somewhere that stayed manual well into the 90s.
The Bryant Pond (Maine) Telephone Company had the last crank-telephone/operator system in the country and ended service in October 1983. It was owned by my high school classmate's father. The switchboard was in their living room, and my classmate sometimes served as operator. He once told me, "If you ever need to find where I live, just follow the telephone lines. They all lead to our house." Today, a large telephone sculpture resides in a little park on Route 26, by the Post Office.
Operator: Number Please!
Caller: Hey what's the story here? There's no dial on this phone!!
😂😂😂
You have it backwards, The customer dialed the number they wanted to get,the cama Operator was asking the customer your number please. The equipment couldn't see who was trying to make the call. That's why the operator was asking the customer your number please for billing purposes.
@@johnjaco5544 Apparently you and the three others didn't listen to the audio between 3:07 & 3:12. One pedantic reply deserves another, eh?
Didn't realize a few communities still utilized switchboards for phone calls as far as the 70's.
One can only imagine how long it took them to be wired for Internet access.
It probably wouldn't have been too bad, as the new wiring required for the shown upgrades would've been at least copper, and primitive fiber optic likely in later upgrades to direct dial. This means these physical lines, as well as the other equipment needed, would probably have been modern enough to be easy to facilitate ISDN, T series and DSL type services.
Australia had a few manual exchanges right up until 1989
The intro music instantly puts me in a good mood every time I hear it.
I love the att archives
Those were the days! When I was a kid growing up in the early 60’s in Hawaii our number was 5 digits. We had direct dial among most phones on Oahu but calls to other islands and the mainland had to be made through the Operator.
My Mum was a telephone operator when she was a teenager. It was her first job.
😐🫤 and?
Collecting the old magneto and early dial phones has become a nice hobby for my son and I. We bump into nice examples at flea markets and antiques shops. One thing I can say, we got every single one of them working having only needing to replace a bad element on occasion. A time when US made items were built to last.
I love these videos...I could watch them all day
My father was a senior systems engineer in Miami in the 70s when the telephone company put a new modern system in the federal courthouse there. He bought home an old operator switchboard and we had it in the den in our house for a while. We all played with that desk when we were little. He brought home a set of those analogue switches for me to play with too. I wish id kept one of them.
My grandma used to be a switchboard operation for a small town with about 500 people she said she only ever had to sound the fire alarm once for a barn fire
Thanks for taking time to make these videos. I grew up fascinated by telecomm, and, made my living in it. I've seen switch boards, crossbars, DMS, ESS, Strowger. A long list of network technologies. People don't understand just how much tech they have in their smart phones and its infrastructure. (I worked in commercial broadcasting in high school and college and have a degree in computer science. ) Fascinates me. Thanks, again. Oh, and my aunt was the local NW Bell daytime operator until it went to #5 crossbar (don't know when that was). It went ESS in 1992. Not covered in this video, but, pretty amazing what happened with the transistor. Moore's Law.
Where I live in, Woodstock Maine, there is a fifteen foot monument with a plaque that says this town had the last phone service in the U.S., It's a monument of a candlestick telephone.
I'm a Maine-iac too. Is Woodstock near Bryant Pond or Bear Pond? I heard that area used crank phones into the '90s maybe(?) What year did it change for you?
@@UberLummox yes Bryant pond is next door
W8TN4IT Mount Carroll Illinois and surrounding area had their own phone company into the 1960s when area codes came in.
I was lucky enough to visit a Bell installation and see the mechanical switching equipment in action. There is a scene in the movie, 'Dial M For Murder', that shows these switches working.
I’m from Canada (about 60 miles west of Toronto) I remember in the 1970s my father had to call the operator & ask to be connected to his sister in Trinidad, several minutes later the operator would call us back to say we were connected!😮
Those patch cables have the same connectors we still use today on audio patch panels in event venues.
People also use them with analogue synthesizers.
Wait till you find out how old the auxiliary port is.
It’s called “tip-and-ring”.
TRS tip, ring, sleeve
It has a ground for shielding the cable from crosstalk amongst the adjacent cables.
lololol are you serious? the quarter inch jack is one of the oldest connectors
He has the voice of someone to whom I would entrust my wardrobe and my haircuts.
The reason that the cord board on Catalina island was ripped out in 1978 is because, according to Evan Doorbell, they discontinued the use of cordboards in the entire bell system in 1978.
Sara this is Andy can you get me Barney over at the court house?
Even for that period (early 60s) that would be rather old fashioned.
In major cities like Cleveland the electromechanical switching system called Panel was in place from 1928 to the early 70s. This equipment made dial based calls. Replaced by ESS.
Slaterville Springs, NY, had a switchboard until the late '60s. I can't count how many times I asked the Ithaca operator for Slaterville 7F-24. If the circuit was free, the operator would connect me and give two long and four short rings. If my then sweetie was home and listening, she'd pick up. It was an eight party line, and the call cost fifteen cents for three minutes.
I was glad when Slaterville upgraded to direct dial. Now I miss the switchboard.
St. Ignace, MI. Just on the other side of the Macinaw bridge! I briefly worked for Lucent Technologies in downtown Detroit. Unfortunately, they over hired and had to layoff a bunch of people after the dotcom era fizzled out. Best paying job I ever had! $13.50/h to start and that was back in 2000. Union, benefits, payed for my gas milage to work, sick days, vacation days, on the job training etc.
Its crazy seeing how we used to have to call through an operator and now we have phones that fold in half.
Any phone can be folded in half. Once.
kevin9c1 lol
I kinda wish we still had that kind of service nowadays! I grew up with a dial phone, but I love nostalgia. I'll never forget how O used to feel when I got home to find that light on the answering machine or caller I'd blinking-happy if the call was for me & sad if it wasn't or if no one called.
Can you imagine the brain operations of the person who created the switchboard to begin with? To even dream of something that insane requires serious imagination. Just step back and look and the entire board, it’s just so WOW.
ikr just watching these ladies running the switch boards and making it look easy gotta hand it to them i know i couldnt do it for sure
@@banditt18 I’m impressed for sure. I did see recently a woman who was old when switchboards were long gone but she still had a prototype and showed people how they worked.
Love this guy!
Bryant Pond, Maine was another one. They didn't convert to dial phones until 1982!
My mother was an operator. She worked for the Strategic Air Command. Her security clearance exceeded that of the Vice President.
It's amazing old technology last so long.
This would be the last for the usa but there are places in the world that were still uesing switch bords up in to the late 90s to the early 2000s
My late grandmother, on my late dad's side of my family, lived on the family farm and she didn't get non-party line phone service until 1980, when a lot of farmer's passed away and families sold the property to developers that built housing subdivisions and apartment complexes, which began to dominate the landscape. The Bell System installed an electronic phone switch to replace the old crossbar system to handle the high demand for phone service.
This is totally random but are used to run the house from a guy that owned a check ski place on Catalina Island and he had the coolest painting in the garage and he offered to give it to me and I wish I would’ve kept it. The painting was a Catalina I mean it wasn’t perfect but it was really cool
We had switchboard operators into the 80's. Still can't get cell-phone without a DSL router.
interesting and thanks
I think the presenter was fabulous.
I love the spokesqueen in the beginning of these vids. It's a symphony of sibilants!
We had an Army switchboard, but I never got to use it. Switchboards always intrigued me.
Oh man, the world could do with reintroducing this for calls from India. Having to got through the "Hello Sir, this is John Johnson from Microsoft security and I would like to connected to..." would cause a massive drop in scam calls.
my left ear is enjoying this
Honestly even by early 60s standards, Andy Griffith using candlestick phones and having to call "Sarah" to manually connect the call would be quite old fashioned.
Not really. Maybe in the city that would be considered strange. Out here in the rural areas, gosh, we still had a party line at our farm until the early 1970's!! Everybody on one line had their own particular "ring" you'd listen for. See how in one part of the film, the operator moves that little switch twice?? She's sending out a signal to the receiving telephone to ring it's bell twice. Our particular "ring" was two shorts and a long.
But if we were bored, we could still pickup the phone from time to time and listen in on other conversations. lol
@@That_AMC_Guy Party lines, sure...but did you still use candlestick phones and had to ask the operator to manually connect all your calls?
@@JohnSmith-zw8vp No candlestick phones, no. We never had those. We didn't get a phone out on the farm until the mid 50's. We had a black bakelite phone mounted on the wall with no dial. There was a raised impression where the dial would be, but ours just had a sticker with our number typed onto it. Had a regular handset like a modern phone.
To call out, if the operator was paying attention, you'd just pick up the phone and within seconds she'd ask "Number please?". But if she was busy, the phone would just remain silent. You'd have to click the little buttons on the handset cradle which I assume made the light flash on her board. THEN, you'd get a connection and she'd ask for the number.
My grandma really wanted to work the switchboard, and got hired, but they fired her as soon as they saw she was left-handed. That wasn't allowed, because the desk only had a small writing pad on the right side. That would have been in the 1950s.
Wow. That would be a lawyers' wet-dream today. That's got wrongful dismissal suit written all over it.
Was she non-union?
"Hello Marcella, could you connect me to the sheriff please?" Man how I wish I could have lived in these times.
I think they need to revive this system with the wonderful George Kupczak as the operator. This guy is a fucking legend. :)
When is this newfangled dial service coming to my community?
In my country this connection board it used to be in use till 92~93
San Gregorio, a town south of San Francisco, still had a magneto pay phone outside the general phone until the 1980s
We had dial mechanical connection service and only had to dial 4 numbers for local calls until 1984.
my grandpa still has his hand crancked phone like that it's been modified to work as a lan line and still works today
Fascinating. Truly.
And now we have videos entitled "The Last Towns"
Bryant Pond, Maine had the last crank phone system to be retired in October of 1983.
The 1977 film "The Sting" for years influence films like this with a non-ending stream of Scott Joplin songs line the "Maple Leaf Rag" and "The Entertainer" (heard here).
I remember we still had party lines until I a teenager in the late 80's.
I did night service in a manual board. 20 or so calls a night, and at 10 the town operator would patch through his lines to me as he was going to sleep, then I would have the outgoing lines just in case there was a call so I did not have to wake him. Day operator was busy, she worked from 6H30 till 16H00, there was a roster for the rest of the time.
are you from france?
B4 my time! My town was rotary dial step growing up; installed in 1930!
I grew up in Moss Point, MS and we only had to dial the last 5 numbers to make a local call in our 474/475 prefix and this lasted until 1987 and we did have direct dial....
I remember dialing the last 4 numbers in Burns, OR in 1974.
@@marilynmitchell2712 we had to dial 5 because there were 2 prefixes, 474 and 475
Ahh, I would love to live in 1960 -1970 and be switchboard operator...
lots of friendly people back then now its foreigner invaders
onlythewise1 lmao that’s out of nowhere
@@onlythewise1 Foreign invaders? If you're talking about non-Americans I find them to be FAR friendlier than Americans.
@@honestdave4362 of course they friendly now but later they wont be dont be dumb , how about that one who raped a white girl and killed her to is that friendly
@@onlythewise1 wut
I love his John Wayne impression! lol 😂
55 years of service wonder if the systems now a days survive that
The technology is moving too fast. The equipment could last 55 years but people want better systems and more features long before.
The narrator is the most Californian person in America
I believe AT&T is using my personal information Globally & Without My Knowledge. I feel there giving me the run around since 2016 I have been questioning them. I personally never had any other service only AT&T.
I did use my husbands old cell phone whom I married the later part of 2016 after I canceled my service with AT&T in April 2018. It was not until 2018 I used my husbands old cell phone which he uses Verizon. In August 2020 I went back with AT&T & I feel I’m having the same problems. Privacy issues & EMAIL ADDRESS THEFT
I believe that Santa Catalina was converted from magneto to common battery many years prior to the 1978 dial conversion
Originally, Catalina was on a radiotelephone system, with the conversion being dictated by reports that local radio operators were "listening in" on Catalina telephone conversations.
And once Catalina's "new" (for 1928) telephonic hardware went into service, it was connected to the mainland (at San Pedro) via the first undersea cable laid for stateside telephone service, via the Army vessel Dallwood.
Dating myself, but last time I ran a switchboard was while in the USN. It wasn't a public exchange, but a private or PBX for the base. This was about the same time as this film. I think that PBX was retired at about the same time as the public exchange. Wow, a lot has changed in 45 years.
I wonder when we'll get dial service here ?
I presume the three locations shown in this film leapfrogged past the dial system and went straight from "Central" to the "Touch-Tone" phone system.
I wish the switchboard was still being used today.
I currently go to a small liberal arts college in south-eastern Ohio which still uses a cordboard. My girlfriend works it between classes and sometimes I cover her shifts when she needs to study for tests.
I ran one in a Hospital in the late 70's, and was there when they got a brand new upgrade in 1980. Hard to believe there is a cord board still in existence.
me to
Carl Kane Wonder if they still use it 2 years later?
It is now replaced by PABX and with the widespread usage of the Internet, the increasing use of VoIP and IP-PBx.
I think I like the old way of talking on the phone instead of the new way, the new way is replaced by robots you just type the number and it will go straight to the number you're trying to call, the old way is when humans sat at a switchboard all day and you had to talk to them to get the number you wanted to dial, and that's how it all worked
Not to mention the jobs this used to create. Funny how 99.9% of telephone operators were women, but I don't recall anybody crying foul of how that was "sexist".
I like to play this game with the younger kids at work. It's called "Think of a Job that no longer exists". The other day when I said "telephone operator" they had no idea what that even was and thus had to explain the entire history of the telephone system. I even told them that when I was a kid, you only had to dial 5 numbers. That blew their minds. (and I'm only 41 years old!!)
I wonder if I were to visit that areas museum if it would talk about the phone system?
I understand there are sections of the Catalina Island switchboard on display at the Catalina History Museum, in the Avalon Casino.
So how is Catalina these days? Is it nice to visit?
Looks familiar. My mother in the 50s a phone operator. I was kept in a laundry basket. I learned to cuss early. She was distracted and she grabbed the business end of a soldering tool as they kept one "hot" to fix broken plugs which was not too un common. At the ripe age of 3 I learned the four letter an three words. Quickly then I was at six I was corrected. For my mouth. Still rember what burnt flesh smells like. Guess what I became a radio/telephone operator( 31m20) SB/22 opp go figure.
My Mom slept in a laundry basket.
Were those old 1/4" plugs TRS? As in, balanced audio?
Today we have IP addresses and switching is done via software. Thank you.
This guy and his lisp~ XS
who still has a landline in there house?
I still use a landline.
I still have a landline
🙋🏿♀️😆
lines of coke
"in there house"
It's spelled "their", not "there".